M4/3 Noise

I love my Panasonic GX7 (touchscreen, silent, flip screen & vf, menus etc) but am stumped by m4/3 noise (& puny image stabilisation). Is noise better on any other m4/3 camera? Other wise I have to sell up kit (20mm, 43mm & oly 75mm) & return to a larger sensor boo hoo.
I thought I should clear up a few things after receiving a pm - Most people would not find the noise very objectionable. I want to almost double the pixel dimension (ACR up-sizing) to enable good 15x20 @ 360ppi prints. So even tiny under exposure or lifting of shadows results in noise. Which can of course be treated with the Noise reduction slider but at a softening / mushy price. I come from a full frame background so am after the smoothest most noiseless possible results
I shoot mostly 400 iso and sometimes 200 or 800. Never more than 1600.

The GX8 and Pen-F should be marginally better, with the newer 20mp sensor. But otherwise, the sensor in the GX7 was pretty much state of the art in the m43 world for a few years. I don't know how much different the new sensor will be. I never had any issues with the noise in the 16mp sensors (the earlier 12mp were another issue - don't even THINK about trying to brighten a shadow from that sensor), but it's a relatively common complaint...

The Olympus E-M5, which shares the sensor of the GX7, has a strangely 'dirty' look in the shadows which comes from a pointillist dotting of noise. While not directly visible on first glance, it does have an almost subliminal effect which makes one think that the image is gritty and charcoalish, in a sense. This noise is far more visible when the shadows are pushed.

I have not seen this kind of shadow/black noise in the Panasonic GM1, which has a different sensor from the E-M5 and GX7. I do use a tiny touch of luminance noise reduction in Lightroom with the GM1, but it is considerably better than the E-M5.

I was talking to a Panasonic employee a few weeks ago at a show I did with them in London and he said that the key is to nail the exposure. Get that exposure correct and use a histogram if possible and you should have better files.

Quote: I have not seen this kind of shadow/black noise in the Panasonic GM1, which has a different sensor from the E-M5 and GX7.